Even as the contractions become severe, Willa keeps asking me if I can feel Van Owen nearby. I lie to her, telling her that I can’t sense him anywhere. I can’t have her trying to play the hero like Rolanda did. I made a mistake back then: I tried to keep Van Owen away. That’s not what I’m after anymore. We can’t keep him from coming. And I want him near me, just not until after the baby is born.
“Push harder,” I tell Willa. I can feel the baby crowning, forcing its way toward this tragic world, toward my family’s tragic curse. I touch the baby’s tiny head with both hands, tugging slightly, knowing she will be the last one I deliver.
Willa screams, but I block it all from Van Owen. I don’t want him to know that the child is already here. I can feel him edging his car up the mountain, getting closer; I revel in his frustration as his tires spin against the unforgiving snow, whining on every turn.
“Again,” I tell Willa. “Harder this time.” With a roar, Willa pushes, and the child enters the world squinting and crying, green eyes large and ethereal. I hold her softly and cut the cord and clean her off while Willa tries to catch her breath. I place the newborn in her arms. Dara wriggles and coos. My mind goes back to the last birth I administered. I can still feel my knife slicing through my daughter, killing her. Outside, I can hear the car approaching. He’s here. So I leave the memories behind.
“I need you to stay here,” I tell Willa. “No matter what you hear, stay inside.” Of course, I know she won’t. Willa never does what she’s told.
“What? Is he here?” She clutches the baby tightly against her, but, at the same time, she tries to stand. “Is Van Owen here?”
“Everything’s going to be fine, dear.”
“But… you’re…you’re old, Grandma. He’s still young… he doesn’t age…”
I squeeze her hand. “Willa, don’t ever forget: no matter what, he’s blood and bone, just like us. And he might not show it, but he’s even older than I am.” I touch the baby’s silky cheek and kiss Willa’s forehead. “Not another word now. Stay here. Dara needs you.”
“Dara?” she asks. “Is that her name?”
A gunshot rings out. A second one. Willa gasps. “Marco?”
“It’s all right. He’s all right. I love you, dear. Goodbye.”
“Grandma….”
Once I leave the tiny room—where Willa’s eyes allowed me to see—I am blind again, and I have to feel my way to the front door of the cabin. I hear Marco cry out. Van Owen is torturing him with horrific visions of realities that never existed and never will. As always, Van Owen is taking pleasure in giving pain. I step outside, letting the door slam behind me so he can hear it.
“That’s enough,” I shout in their direction. Van Owen loses his concentration, and Marco falls into the snow, unconscious. I wish I could stay alive long enough to help him—to heal what Van Owen did to him. All things heal in time, though, and Marco will find his strength and his fearlessness again when he needs them most.
I saw this scene years ago. And so I rely on my memory as my eyes. Van Owen steps away from the car, turning toward me, his back facing the edge of the cliff.
“Amara?” he says with an odd tone of wonder, almost as if he’s pleased to see me. He masks his joy immediately, though, with cruelty. He almost laughs as he sneers, “How old you’ve become, Amara. Old and stooped. You were almost attractive once. Now you’re just a withered old African witch.”
“Yes,” I nod, “I am a witch. And I’m just full of spells.”
His voice is so calm, so assured, his accent as thick as ever. “But your spells are never enough, are they, Amara?” I keep walking toward him. As long as he’s talking, I can find him. “All the spells in the world aren’t enough to help you, Amara. You’ve always been weak while I was born to be powerful.”
I let him rant. His words are meaningless. I walk on, closer, closer. I will need his eyes for what comes next. I concentrate, relying on the lasting nature of his connection to me; he’s never been able to block me from entering his mind. Today is no exception. I reach out with my thoughts, seeking and grasping until I find his. This time, though, I don’t stop there. I don’t just hover and watch and listen to his thoughts. I send him a surprise, one I’ve been practicing for years just for this occasion. I open my mind and concentrate, pulling at his consciousness and drawing it into my body, into my mind. His eyes into my eyes. In an instant, I am looking at the world through his eyes, and he is looking out through mine. And now he is the blind one.
“What have you done, witch?” he shouts, waving his arms. “Why is it so dark?”
I can feel him struggling against me, trying to resist, trying to withdraw from my brain and regain his eyesight. He tries to walk toward me, but his footing is shaky. He’s never been blind before. He staggers back a bit—closer to the precipice. The wind whips over the snow bank at the edge of the mountain. Although he cannot see, he’s still in control of his body, as I am in control of mine. Each of us is simply seeing with the other’s eyes. I watch my old woman’s body, weak and gaunt and aged as it moves toward him. I’ll need to be as close as possible for my next trick.
“Dear God,” he whispers, a sudden awareness in his tone. “These are your eyes, aren’t they, Amara. Is that why everything is dark, Amara? Are you blind?”
“No, Hendrik, I see better than I ever have. Let me show you.”
With that, I let him see again. I let him see what I would be able to see if I still could. I let him see a vision of my creation. I let him see himself as I see him, and so the Van Owen that approaches him as he looks out through my eyes is not wearing the stylish trench coat and suede boots he wears now. He wears the garb of Captain Van Owen, nineteenth century slaver. He carries a saber in one hand and a whip in the other. The whip scrapes the snow as he slithers forward.
“Illusions, Amara,” he scoffs. “Illusions can’t hurt me.” Yet his voice is shaky. If he’s not scared, at least he’s unsteady. And he’s close enough now—only twenty feet away.
I think about the other times I faced him—how I was intent not only to defeat him but to kill him as well. But I was a fool. Van Owen lives for years to come. He’ll be alive to face Dara’s offspring; I’ve seen it. Killing him isn’t an option, but hurting him is. And I so want to hurt him.
I shout the next words almost ecstatically. “I don’t need illusions, Van Owen. I have magic.” I reach into my coat and draw my newest weapon, a Smith & Wesson K-22 Masterpiece revolver lent to me by Marco. I look out through Van Owen’s eyes and watch my old woman’s body adjust my arm until the revolver points directly at him. “Do you remember, Hendrik, when I was too weak to fight you: in the cage on your ship, in my hospital bed after giving birth, in my cabin right after arriving on your plantation—too weak even to raise my arms or my mind in defense. Look at me now, Van Owen. I’m not weak anymore.”
With that, I return his sight to him. What he sees is me, pointing the pistol at him. “No,” he screams, but I’m already firing.
As I leave his mind and return to my own, I swear I can feel the bullet. Part of my mind is still trapped inside his, and I feel the bullet cutting into him, slicing him apart from the inside, just as I had to do to Rolanda. I hear the humming start. He wants to fire back at me with his lightning. I think of Ray, my beautiful husband, and I fire again. I think of Sam and Harry—my African American friends whom Van Owen murdered—and I fire again. I think of my Rolanda, who sacrificed herself to save her child, and I fire again. I think of my mother and father, the first of my family to fall victim to his hatred, and I fire again. Blind and unable to aim, I fire again anyway, every bullet finding its target. Van Owen howls. I hear him toppling backward, falling into the snow, wheezing as he traces his hands along the wounds, magnetizing the bullets and ripping them from his chest, cauterizing the gashes as fast as he can before his blood can drain away.
“You evil witch,” he moans. I can’t see him now, but I saw it all in visions years ago. I saw him in the
snow, bleeding, scared. The humming grows louder.
I close my eyes and wait for the lightning. I have no defense for it—I am too old and too slow—so I wait. I focus on the chill of the Northern wind against my cheek, the scent of pine in the air, the sound of Van Owen in pain. Then, for the second time in my life, I feel the power that Van Owen stole from my betrothed. The lightning jolt races through me. It blasts my sternum, but the shock spreads everywhere at once. It should hurt—it should feel like fire—but instead it feels cold. Even as I smell my own flesh burning and my heart threatens to stop beating and I fall to the ground, there is no pain. I lie here facedown in the snow, not making a sound, listening to Van Owen panting, coughing, bleeding. I hear him pull himself up to his knees before he falls back down again, unconscious. And I smile. I’ve won. I’ve beaten him in mortal combat. Now I can die.
Twenty-Nine
Terry was weeping. Bound to the chair, unable to move, feeling the tears run from his eyes, leak from the duct tape blindfold, and slide down his face, He was crying for Amara, a great-great-grandmother he had never known, though he felt now as if he had known her all his life. Get up, he wanted to shout to her where she lay in the snow, but there was nothing he could do to help her. She had died decades ago.
Finally, he understood the source of the strange images that had infiltrated his mind two years earlier—images that had rendered him catatonic then. He had thought them nightmares, something to bury and forget. But they were memories. And now, after finally allowing himself to experience them, he finally understood whose memories they were—Amara’s. But how, he wondered? How did Amara’s memories get into my mind?
He tried to move his hands, but the tape was still firm. His shoulders were sore from struggling, wrenched as they were with his hands tied behind his back. He pushed with his tongue against the tape that covered his mouth. Still nothing. He could hear his breath coming in through his nose in loud stabs. How long will they keep me like this? he asked himself again and again. He hated the sensation. Bound. Imprisoned. Un-free. How did Amara survive so long?
He wished he could speak to Regina. After everything he had seen—Van Owen and his men storming the wedding in Mkembro, Amara transplanted to the plantation, the coming of the war, Rolanda’s birth and death, Willa’s days with Marco, the birth of Terry’s own mother, and all of the strange powers that had been handed down from generation to generation—he wanted to tell all of it to somebody, and it was Regina with whom he had always shared everything. He was her protector as much as he was her older brother. That Regina communicated telepathically only with him made their connection stronger. He especially enjoyed knowing that their father knew nothing of their silent conversations. Of late, though, he had begun to wonder: had Regina told Willa about her ability? The only women in the house spent so much time together after all, and Regina had never known her own mother. It would only make sense that she would want to share her secrets with Willa. And if Willa knew about Regina’s telepathy, wouldn’t Willa have told Regina about the entire family history? The more he considered it, the more certain he was about it. Regina had been keeping secrets from him! Willa had surely told Regina everything. But Regina hadn’t told Terry because she had thought him powerless—she thought it was safer if he remained unaware.
It was making more and more sense: Willa and Regina thought that the men in the family were the powerless ones. As far as Willa and Regina knew, abilities were passed to the women only. Until the current generation, there had been only women in the bloodline.
There was no time to dwell on these matters, though. Terry had more memories to explore. He was afraid of what was to come, but he forced himself to watch—to remember—anyway. He opened his mind to Amara’s memories, and they came.
Thirty
Soon Willa will come from the cabin. By then I’ll be dead. She’ll find me lying here in the snow. My death will enrage her so fervently that she’ll wave her hand and send Van Owen over the edge of the cliff. In the winter wind, he'll drift like a loosed scarecrow, careening off the mountainside before landing in a snow bank to rot alive at the bottom of a ravine. I wish I could be there to watch, but I’ve seen it already. It’s an image that has helped me through darker times.
As the chill sets in, I make the oddest discovery—I am losing all sense of my body. How strange. For so long, I protected my earthly body, convinced that it was all that stood between Van Owen and the safety of my family. Yet here, at the end, as my body dies, I finally understand that I am so much more than this mere shell. I don’t feel weak. I don’t feel powerless or crippled or even blind. I feel everything. I feel the snow beneath me and around me. I feel the afternoon sky above me. I feel the trees and the cabin and Marco and Willa and Dara, my newborn great-granddaughter. This form that housed my spirit for these one hundred thirteen years is nothing. It is not me. It is only a container while I am so much more. I am the Mkembro people of the shores of West Africa. I am the tobacco-farming slaves of the plantations of the South. I am the Black migrant workers, scurrying from town to town, in search of safe havens for their families. I am my father and my mother—chieftain and chieftess. I am West Africa, fractured and pilfered and bloodied yet still majestic, still wondrous, still lush, still wild. Still free.
I long to feel the wind against my face one last time. I raise my head, lifting it from the snow. Against my damp cheek, the air is cool, rich with winter frost. The wind seems to whisper to me, urging me to open my eyes. So I open them, and, for the first time in decades, I can see with them.
At first, the world is dim. I see only dim light. But then the light comes into focus. The sun is hidden. Snow is drifting down toward me. I look upward through the ring of evergreens that surround the hillside cabin, trying to remember if one can actually see snow as it leaves the clouds. The sky is deep blue like the ocean near Mkembro. A lonely ibis circles the sky, seeming to evade the snow, its attention riveted to the ground near me, to the stench of blood in the air. I look over and see what has drawn the bird’s notice: Van Owen.
He is unconscious, entrenched in the snow as I am. The blood from his bullet wounds has formed an outline around his upper body, painting the snow crimson. For a moment I am disgusted with myself, for I take pleasure in his suffering. I took a gamble by choosing a gun as my final weapon against him, but it paid off. I guessed right. Losing blood is the only thing that can truly hurt or threaten him. This is why he has always been so quick to cauterize his wounds with his lightning. He can survive falls and blows and even bullets, but he cannot survive the loss of too much blood. This is the answer that I have sought for most of my life—how to end Hendrik Van Owen’s life—an answer that will die with me here on this mountaintop. Is that the final lesson for me to learn, that the strange powers of the Mkembro and Merlante leaders—telepathy and wind and lightning—are all too gentle, too grounded in the natural world, that in the end, the willingness to draw blood is the only weapon that can win a war against evil? Am I to die knowing the final solution but, like Cassandra, unable to pass on my knowledge?
As if in response, the snow and the winter air and the Maine cabin fold back as if they are nothing more than elements on a painted backdrop. The present is peeled away like an artist’s canvas, and I am a seer once more. The future reveals itself in a vision clearer than any I have ever had. And I know what’s going to happen. I watch it all—decades of future history—in a moment:
I lie face down in the snow, smoldering yet freezing. Willa throws open the door to the cabin, the baby Dara in her arms, wrapped in a blanket. She runs to my side, kneels beside me in the snow to check for a pulse. There is none. I am dead.
Nearby, Van Owen begins to stir. With great effort, he pulls himself up to one knee. His white shirt, exposed beneath his trench coat, is coated in blood.
“You bastard,” Willa hisses. “You killed her.”
Van Owen stares at my lifeless body. For a moment, he almost looks sad. His lips cur
l down. His eyes squint. Then he remembers himself. He stands slowly, painfully, and begins inching toward Willa, his eyes fixed on the baby in her arms. “Yes,” he whispers weakly, “I killed her. She was mine to kill as I pleased. She belonged to me. It was all that was left for me to do with her. Now give me the child or I’ll kill you as well.”
“Go to hell,” says Willa. She closes her eyes and raises her arm, her palm facing upwards, her fingertips pointing toward him. Slowly, Van Owen begins to rise into the air. Stunned, he looks down at the snow, farther and farther below him. He hovers flat on his back, twelve feet, fifteen feet, twenty feet above the snow. His arms hang limp. His legs dangle like a puppet’s. Blood drips from his shirt and trickles soundlessly onto the white snow like red rain. He winces and spits blood, but he keeps his eyes focused on Willa’s. He is trying to steal his way into her mind. “No,” she tells him, “I won’t let you defile me.” Like a queen dismissing a subject, she waves her hand, and Van Owen sails backward over the precipice, screaming all the way down.
Willa tries to look over the cliff after him—to see him bloody and crippled at the bottom of the ravine—but the snow at the edge is not safe. She cannot take a chance. Besides, she knows he survives the fall. She knows she will face him again years from now. I told her that much.
Later, Marco digs through the snow and the frozen ground to honor me with a proper burial. His arms ache from the exertion, but he never falters. Willa stands at the window watching, crying, cursing herself for every time she defied me. I wish I could tell her that I wouldn’t have wanted her to be any other way than she is—strong, independent, relentless. Her family needs her that way.
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